The present application is related in subject matter to and cross-referenced with both U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/014,486 (entitled Multifunctional Printing System with Queue Management) and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/024,072 (entitled Multifunctional Printing System) both of which applications were filed by Salgado et al. on the same day as the present Application. The disclosures of the above-mentioned applications are incorporated herein by reference.
This invention relates generally to a multifunctional printing system with one or more queues and, more particularly, to a contention management scheme which contemplates both the prioritization of one or more jobs, on the basis of the source at which the one or more jobs were developed, for the sake of managing insertion of the prioritized one or more jobs into the one or more queues, and that jobs will be processed in accordance with a preprogrammed set of rules.
Electronic printing systems typically include an input section, sometimes referred to as an input image terminal ("IIT"), a controller, and an output section or print engine, sometimes referred to as an image output terminal ("IOT"). In one type of electronic printing system, manufactured by Xerox.RTM. Corporation, known as the DocuTech.RTM. electronic printing system, a job can be inputted to the printing system from, among other sources, a network or a scanner. An example of a printing system with both network and scanner inputs is found in the following patent: